Ubuntu 10.10 Preinstalled in Dell Inspiron N4050

It's the first time I encountered an OEM version of Ubuntu.  It comes preinstalled in the Dell Inspiron N4050.  Unfortunately, Ubuntu 10.10 is already an old and unsupported version of Ubuntu.

Specs of the machine includes Intel Core i3-2350M, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 640GB Hard Drive,14" LCD screen 1366x768 resolution, AMD HD6470M with 1GB Memory.

I didn't encounter any problems installing and running 12.04 with this laptop, although the installer asked to optionally install a Broadcom wireless chip driver.


The keyboard has full-sized cursor keys, and dedicated Home, PageUp, PageDown, End keys in the common sequence.  The tactile feedback of the keys however is uneven.  For example, the period, S, and D keys feel softer than the comma, A, and D keys.  Because of this, typing can be error-prone, at least while you're not used to the keyboard.

The keyboard is missing the Break/Pause key.  While rarely used, users of programs/OS which use that as shortcuts are in for a surprise.  Me, I use Super+Break key in Windows to call the System Settings.

No secondary functions for the cursor keys.  I find controlling volume and brightness the best secondary use for the cursor keys.

There are no indicator lights for Caps Lock, Num Lock and Scroll Lock.   Out of those 3, only Caps lock really matters.  NumLock is too unwieldy for a laptop keyboard.

The laptop is not for basic office use.  The processor and graphics capacity is more than regular businesses need.  But for multithreaded graphics applications like Photoshop and GIMP, it adds a bit of firepower.  Not much, but maybe well worth it for the budget.


Cost: ~26000php

Easy Installation of FreeNX Server in Ubuntu 12.04

It looks like we can skip the dependency problems during FreeNX installation by skipping the freenx metapackage.

Installation then becomes as follows:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:freenx-team

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install freenx-server freenx-smb freenx-rdp freenx-session-launcher gnome-session-fallback

Then, connect away with NoMachine's nxclient!

nxsetup doesn't seem to be required.  Printing and samba file sharing still not working though :(

FreeNX and X2Go in Ubuntu 12.04

So FreeNX finally has a repository for Ubuntu Precise Pangolin.  I've been working on and off it for the past couple of weeks to get it working, but it's not perfect.

For the installation, I'd have to download some esound-client and other deb files from Debian's repository.  Apt-Get would tell you what deb files you would need to look for to get the installation going.

For connection, the standard Gnome desktop worked the best, but for some reason the bottom Task Bar panel is missing.

Printing and File Sharing isn't working yet.  It looks like I'll have to go hunting in the log files to see what's not working.

I've also tested X2Go in Precise.  This is easy, except for the file sharing and printing.  Printing is a one-off thing.  At first it looks like it's working.  On my next connection, it just stops behaving.  X2Go also has a difficult user interface, it hurts to use...

Update:  It looks like the "missing" taskbar was due to a window resizing issue.  If I maximize the NX window, the taskbar is there after all.

Google Drive

I've been following Google Drive news for the past few weeks and finally it has launched.  At least somewhere.  I don't know anyone yet using it, and I don't know when I'll be able to use it.  Going to drive.google.com tells me it's not ready yet for me. 

It might have to do with the fact I'm paying for additional storage in gmail.  Maybe they haven't figured out yet how to reconcile the old and new storage options.  Before, I only paid $5 a year for 20gb mail storage.  Now they offer 25gb for all storage for $30.  $5 to $30 seems a bit steep for now, but in the future, I think I'll definitely need more than 5GB for all the files I wanted synced.

Then, I'll also have to wait for their linux client.  I use linux for my primary computer (laptop) and just use my Windows  desktop for some development work. 

I have other choices that can work now: Dropbox and Ubuntu One.  What stopped me in Dropbox was the limited free space (though it can definitely grow with referrals).  Prices are a bit steep.  Ubuntu One used to not have a Windows client.  I guess I can go try Ubuntu One again.  They're priced similarly to Google Drive, and I would be able to use it now.

Still, there's the Google in the Google Drive.  And that's a charm I would want to try first.

Nvidia joining Linux Foundation

Nvidia recently joined the Linux Foundation. What I hope that leads to in the long run are better open source drivers. Intel and AMD both support open source graphics drivers, and because of that, our company buys AMD and intel driven integrated graphics hardware only. It doesn't matter to us that nvidia proprietary drivers are the fastest. We as an SME are not into games but favor chipsets or processors with integrated graphics hardware.